Send anything you think other people would be interested in seeing to website@middlebury.edu, or feel free to add it to the comment here! Expect to see another post here soon letting you know where to go to see what your peers are up to!

I have been personally experimenting with Twitter, the micro-blogging tool.  After nearly a year, I’ve discovered there is immense value in personal and professional learning networks.  I ‘follow’ edtech professionals, NPR news, teachers, and the humor of ICHCheezburger. With Twitter I am able to post 140 character ‘tweets’ of insight, listen to others, and crowdsource an idea or question. Now that I’ve nearly summited the Twitter adoption curve (see left), I’m evangelizing with students and colleagues here at MIIS.  Trouble is it’s an uphill battle.

This, however, changed recently when a TLC colleague, Sarah Springer mentioned a new tool in a brief conversation.  She said something about a crowdsourcing tool named Yammer.  I didn’t write it down or Tweet about it, but it did stick in my mind.  I went and checked it out online.  Essentially, Yammer is an enterprise Twitter for in-house collaboration, and maybe a gateway tool for future Twitterers.  We’ve slowly invited like-minded staffers, students, and faculty to join in on the sharing.

An added feature that Yammer offers is the ability to tag posts with hashmarks.  So, it I share an event I could include the #event tag and my yammer msg would be added to that tag archive, very much like blogging categories or tags work as well.  I can even follow a given tag in Yammer and receive a digest e-mail of activity.

I’ll continue to tap into my Twitter network as beohbe, but am excited by the possibilities that Yammering in-house learning and sharing will bring as we continue to experiment with communication and collaboration tools here in Monterey.